Real Stashbusting - Donating Yarn

My goal behind designing patterns it to have others knit them, too, which means they should at least have access to the yarns I'm using even if they choose to substitute something else.

This is a problem when I have a yarn stash that I've been building since 2010 (I realize it's a tiny baby of a yarn stash compared to some of you) half full of discontinued yarn.  I don't have the energy right now to develop something that no one could reproduce.  And since all of my knitting efforts are currently focused on designing, I didn't want to do any of the typical tiny or heavily striped projects.

But the yarn has to go somewhere.  And I picked Project Warm-Up in Washington State.  They seemed the most legit, and their leader, Holli, was really quick to e-mail me back with an address to send the yarn.  (You can also find it on their Facebook page.)  They use yarn to knit items like hats and toys, and they also work with a Girls and Boys club that teaches fiber arts to at-risk kids.  Maybe something in these two boxes headed out tomorrow will keep someone from joining a gang.

Not all of it is discontinued, though.  Some of it is downright fantastic, but I know that I'll never be able to turn it into anything.  For example, my seven skeins of Colinette Point Five, no more than one per color, that I bought for no good reason.  Maybe someone can make seven really adorable cowls or baby hats.

An awful picture of beautiful yarn: seven skeins of Colinette Point Five, all headed to charity.

Now my yarn cupboard is quite sad and bare.  It's very tempting to go out and fill it all up again, but I think I'll be able to resist.

WIP (Almost) Wednesday 1

Apparently it is a tradition among knitting bloggers to post pictures of works in progress (WIPs) on Wednesdays.

Well, I am here to tell you that Wednesdays are terrible days to write blog entries, because I have homework due every Wednesday.  It's due at midnight, which means, guess what I'm doing with my evening up until midnight?  Guess what I say won't happen every week on Wednesday, but totally happens, without fail?

Someday, I won't be trying to work full time and go to school, but until then, here's my WIP Almost Wednesday:

Tosh Merino Light in Antique Lace - a dream!  The name of the sweater is a secret until I publish the pattern because I know there are thousands of you silently reading this blog, waiting to steal it.

This is the very first thing I've knit in lace!  It's a horseshoe lace pattern that's thankfully fairly easy to memorize and also easy to know right away (at the latest, two rows later) if you've made a mistake.  So far, the biggest mistake was not slipping on an sk2p, but I managed to fix it without having to rip it back!  I refuse to learn to crochet, but I do own a crochet hook for these exact situations.

As you can tell, it still needs a good block, ends sewn in, and buttons sewn on.  I blocked a swatch of the lace pattern, and it really opens it up.  The ends also end up looking way less lumpy.

The reason I finally got around to knitting lace was thanks to Eat.Sleep.Knit's "new to you" knit-a-long.  By knitting a project that makes me try something new, I get 1000 yards credited to my yarnathon progress!

The goal is to publish this pattern eventually.  I'm trying to work on a few extra lace details people can add on as they wish and to make the increases more symmetrical.  I learned how to do kfb's and yarn overs on the purl side, too, so I will try that on the next size that I test out.

Top 10 Reasons to Knit Baby Sweaters

Everyone* who knows about my knitting knows that it is 95% baby sweaters.  In honor of my tiny sweaters, here are, in no particular order, the reason you should knit them, too:

1. You get the satisfaction of completing a real garment in just a weekend!
2. You can splurge on really nice yarn, because you probably won't use more than two skeins.  One skein of Malabrigo Rastita or Madelinetosh Pashmina can make a sweater up to size 12 months (and maybe beyond, but I haven't tried it yet), as long as you don't get too fancy with the stitching.  A skein of Malabrigo Worsted makes a size 12 month cardigan with a cable on it!
3. The baby will not complain if the color isn't just right.
4. The baby will also not complain if the sleeves aren't just the right length.
5. If it really doesn't fit, just put it on a different baby.  Or wait two months.
6. They are just as portable as socks, but with no tricky heel turning or obnoxious single sock syndrome.
7. When airport security is suspicious of your knitting needles, they let their guard down once you tell them you're knitting a baby sweater.  (See number 6)
8. Even an ugly sweater is cute on a baby.
9. A striped baby sweater is the perfect stash-buster.
10. You can display them four across on the back of a tiny couch, in all of their unfinished, unblocked glory.

    

    This is a loaner couch.  I may not have great style, but I own nothing that ugly.

These were the first four sweaters of my sweater-knitting life, which started when I basically had a couple weeks off work nearly a year ago.  I hope to never progress to adult sweaters.  I am the Peter Pan of tiny knit things.

*This is mostly my mom.

Half Marathon Training Plan

Training for my race in Hannover starts today!  Today is a rest day, so I was incredibly successful.

Below is the plan I made for myself.  I had found a 14-week plan in a recent Runner's World magazine, but it had some crazy long weekday runs.  I know myself, and I can get out of bed to run four or five, but not eight or nine, especially when it's still completely dark out.  By the time I get to my first weekday run longer than six miles, dawn will be at 6:45, which is so much better than 7:45 right now.

Plus I haven't really run since my last half marathon last year in Dresden, so I didn't want to jump right into a 30 mile week.

The first training plan I have ever made!

I didn't want to clutter up my nice plan to explain the workouts, but I'll do it here.  Resting, easy running, and long, slow, distance runs are self explanatory.  For hills, I will do four long hill repeats in the middle of the run.  And tempo runs are just the middle 30-35 minutes at tempo.  No one wants to do an eight mile tempo run.  That's gross.

Yarn Haul

The yarn I ordered from Eat.Sleep.Knit finally showed up this weekend!

I've been designing and knitting my own baby sweaters for about a year, and the goal is to publish one by the end of the year.  Before, I had been creating each sweater separately, depending on whom it was for and the yarn I had on hand.  So I had to buy enough yarn to make the sweater in all of its sizes.

The Madelinetosh is being turned into an airy, lacy cardigan.  You can't see the lace yet, but I promise it's there.  This is also my very first lace project!

Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in Antique Lace, Bloomsbury, Vermillion, and Betty Draper's Blues

I don't remember what the Manos was for, but it's in my notebook somewhere.  And I've got a lot of Tosh to work through first, so it will be a while before I get to it.

Manos del Uruguay Fino in Delft, Ivory, Velvet Pincushion, Watered Silk, and Corsage

(Is it bad that I told a friend how excited I was to visit a yarn store, and when she was confused about why that was exciting, I seriously reevaluated our friendship?)

Getting Outside

I've recently been trying to do a better job of training Lena to walk nicely on a leash.  We've had mixed results.  When we stay in our own backyard, she doesn't pull at all.  I reward her as we walk to reinforce the good behavior, but we can walk for several minutes with just a few treats.  Once we leave that area though, she goes bezerk.  Too many new smells, apparently.

I suppose one solution is to take her on a ton of walks so that these smells aren't new anymore.

Another solution is to weigh her down:

Tiny backpack for a tiny dog!

Yesterday we went out with a few tea bags in her backpack.  The additional weight was probably negligible.  I'm not sure why I bothered.  Today she had a few of those single-serve applesauce containers.  We're working up to soup cans.  She also carried her own poop back from the field to the trash can, which was nice.

I added the D-ring to her backpack to attach the leash onto.  This is probably not approved by the dog backpack manufacturers, and after today, it's not approved by me, either.  The slightest tug on the leash would pull her backpack off balance, so I will probably move it back to her collar.

In a stunning example of financial irresponsibility, I don't know how much I dropped on races today, but I signed up for three.  (I hope the money spent now maintaining an active lifestyle will translate to lower healthcare bills down the road.)  One of my goals is to run a half marathon in every German state, and I'm totally behind.  So far, I've only run 3 of 16, and I don't have a whole lot of time left.

Munich is the race I'm focusing on, and it could be interesting.  It doesn't start until 2 p.m., which is both a blessing and a curse.  I usually have a tough time getting out of bed for my long run until noon, so this will make my long runs better practice for the race.  But I think I slow down five seconds per mile for every degree above 40F, and an afternoon race has potential to be pretty warm.  Here's hoping for some unseasonably cold weather this October in the alps.  I'm looking at you, Föhn that destroyed a Christmas snowboarding trip in Austria.  Don't ruin this for me.

Not enough blogs?

You might think the internet has enough blogs, and you'd probably be right.  The internet actually has enough blogs already about the two things I like to do, knit and run, as I discovered when trying to come up with a clever title (please note my failure above).  So why another one?

Here are the top reasons I chose right now to start blogging:

1. I only have a dog, no children.  I've heard once those happen, you can barely keep your hair free of puke, let alone write notes to strangers on a reliable schedule.  My dog has peed, bled, and shat on my floor, though, so I still consider her training for human babies.
2. For the first time, and probably the only time in my career, I have a 9-5 job.  This may change as soon as August.  Otherwise, the hours usually look like 6-7.  One is a.m., the other is p.m.  It doesn't really matter which is which, it's crappy either way.
3. I got a DSLR for Christmas, which makes me an instant photography pro, eager to share her photos with the world.  I will selectively color your newborn's portraits for $50, but you'll need to bring your own bed sheet to use as a backdrop.
4. The internet is forever.  Why journal or scrapbook or otherwise physically document your life when it could so easily be consumed in fire or flood (maybe even both, but this seems like an either-or situation to me)?  This is for posterity.  And while I was initially nervous about making that private embarrassment that comes with reading a five-year-old diary entry into public embarrassment, I realized no one will ever read this, so who cares?

I'm Rachel.  I run.  I knit.  With proper eye protection I may consider both simultaneously.  I live in an apartment with a man and a dog, and we all love each other.